


but the arms of the ocean delivered me

by bluspirits



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-18 02:39:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18111569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluspirits/pseuds/bluspirits
Summary: Billy Bones has always been blessed by the ocean. Though, as time goes on, it begins to feel more like a curse.





	but the arms of the ocean delivered me

**Author's Note:**

> On my like my fourth black sails rewatch and I'm still messed up about Billy Bones. So have a little something about Billy and his vaguely magical connection to the ocean. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Billy remembers the first time he saw the sea as clear as if it was yesterday.

They hadn’t lived close to the ocean growing up, hadn’t traveled too much, so it was after he was taken, being led to ship he was to serve on.

It wasn’t particularly impressive. It was dark and dirty, the smell of salt mixed with the smell of waste and people, full of the ships and wooden docks filling up the harbor until he could barely make out the water under them. His eyes were more focused on the people moving around him, his ears on the noise of the sailors than the sound of the waves and birds, and his heart more on his fear than on the sense of right that the ocean would later bring him. 

While it is true he remembers seeing the ocean for the first time as clear as yesterday, really, it isn’t the water that stands out in that memory. He remembers that moment for a thousand other reasons. 

The hand tight on his shoulder, each step forward one more farther from home. His father’s face, his mother’s words, paper in the air and ink staining his hands. 

The ocean, hungry and dark, its sting in the air, its salt on his skin. 

He knows, in his heart, as soon as he passes from land to boat that he can never go back. The ocean has claimed him as sure as the press gang had chained him. 

===

The captain is off somewhere, doing something the crew hadn’t been informed of on the island, a task that didn’t require the assistance of any of the crew or of Mr. Gates. Which leaves them all somewhat free, and with much of their money already spent in the town, standing on the beach looking out at the water. 

He’s left his boots somewhere further back up the beach and his toes dig into the soft, warm sand. Joji sits on the beach off to his right, cross-legged with his chin resting on one hand. Logan lays beside him on his back, seemingly courting a nasty sunburn. 

“Can you swim?” he calls, spotting Billy’s silent observance of the ocean. 

Billy doesn’t answer for a moment. He doesn’t know why it’s a question he has to think about, but he does. “Never learned.” 

“Bad luck for a sailor to swim,” Logan says absently, with a nod, shifting so his hands are under his head. Joji scoffs, apparently in some kind of disagreement, but doesn’t offer any further opinion. Billy takes a step closer to the waves. 

“Well, don’t drown on us!” Logan shouts at his back after a second. “That’s bad luck too!”

Billy doesn’t turn around, and with another second, his feet hit the water. It’s colder than he expected for some reason, and feels alive around him in a way he doesn't quite understand. 

He's already too tall for much of the Walrus' lower decks, and apparently too tall for the ocean, as he has to walk out for several yards before the gradual slope of the shallows dip into something deep enough. When the water is up to his heart, much of his lungs and chest below the water line, he lets go.

He leans back and sinks, water meeting the back of his head before coming up to surround him, cool and calm. His limbs relax, and he stays there underwater.

His lungs don’t burn like they do when he's worked until he can't draw breath. He opens his eyes. Everything is blue, as far as he can see, darker and darker, pale sand below him. The sound of the waves against the shore pulses in his ears like a heartbeat.

The song rings in his ears as his head breaks the surface. 

He takes a long, slow breath, and stares up at the sky, the same color as the sea all around him.

“Hey, he’s alive,” Logan calls, and his voice barely reaches Billy’s ears. Billy doesn't answer. He turns and wades back towards shore. 

Back on the beach, the captain has returned, and is deep in conversation with Mr.Gates. neither look particularly happy.

Flint draws a sharp breath and turns away from Gates to look around the beach. Logan and Joji, still on the ground, are below his notice. Billy, still in water up to his knees, is right in line with his gaze. Their eyes meet and Billy shivers. 

The tide retreats, pulling on his legs like the sea is trying to draw him back. 

Flint looks away.

===

The thing that surprised him most, about falling into the water after the Andromache, wasn’t really the fall, the impact, though that knocked the breath out of him, drove through from his mind. It was how cold it was. 

Even in the Caribbean, the water felt freezing, like ice cutting against his skin. It stretched on forever in the dark, a world of its own finally come to claim him. It had been looking after him his whole life and now it had come to claim him.

No matter how much water filled his throat, he wouldn’t drown.

===

The doldrums are silent, which is the worst part. The ocean has never been silent for him before, the song always in the back of his mind, even when he’s on land, miles from the shore. And this complete silence scares him almost as much as the looming threat of starvation.

He thinks about jumping in. Just vaguely, not with any real interest. But he's sure that if he did dive in, despite the glassy never ending stillness, the ocean would carry him. Take him away from here, somewhere else.

Silver comes up alongside him, moving slow, both from the leg and the lack of food. Billy is impressed by his strength, though he'd really like it if the man would eat something. Neither of them truly has the energy to speak at length, so eye contact will have to do as a greeting. 

He knows Flint isn’t the cause of this, as desperately ironic as the timing may be. And he isn’t so hopelessly self-centered as to assume that it has anything to do with him and the ocean’s strange connection with him. 

No, this is just pure bad luck and poor planning. Simple as that. 

He won’t die out here, he knows that. The ocean won’t let him die. Still, he isn’t the only person aboard this ship, and he doesn’t assume the sea’s protection extends to all of them. So tension coils around his shoulders, because he’s not sure they’ll all survive this, and watching his brother’s die while the ocean remains still, not even sparing them a single thought is too terrible to keep from thinking about it. 

So he stands and he watches the sea and resolves that if it wants to carry him to safety, then it must carry all of the Walrus with him.

===

The rain beats down on the roof of the Barlow house as Billy sits at the table, book in front of him. 

This rain might be the closest he’s got to water, aside from drinking, cooking, or washing with it for the longest time since he’d been a child. He hasn’t seen the sea in weeks, despite the fact that they’re on an island, and he is a simple ride from the beach. It’s strange, living without the swing of the ocean beneath him, without the hint of salt on his tongue. 

Jacob Garrett sits across the table from him, whittling at something he’s decided will be his next masterpiece.

“Strange, not being at sea,” he says absently, and Billy isn’t even a little surprised to find they’ve been considering the same thing. He nods, a gesture he assumes Jacob notices, as he continues to speak. “I miss it. Not all of it, I do like having fresh food, but the ocean, I sure do miss her. Can't wait to be back on a ship when this is over.”

Billy nods vaguely. Garrett raises an eyebrow, maybe disappointed at the lack of conversation, but he doesn’t say much more for the next few minutes. 

“Well, I’m off,” Garrett says, apparently giving up on Billy as a companion, standing and collecting his tools and half finished carving. He leaves the wood shavings on the table, and Billy makes a note to sweep them up later. He disappears from the room, and Billy is left alone in this house full of ghosts with just his book and the sound of the rain. 

He stares out the window and considers it. It wouldn’t take long to make it to the shore. Yes, it would be dangerous considering everything that’s happening on the island, everything he is working towards, everything he had done. But  
it would be quick, and it’s dark out. 

He could do it. 

Billy closes his book and goes to bed. The ocean can wait.

===

The second time Flint drops him, he manages actual thought on his way down, mostly on the theme of “Really? This again?” and the sea rises around him like an old friend. Or an old enemy more likely, since he seems intent on creating more of those than friends lately. On making enemies out of what used to be friends.

This time he’s learned. This time there’s no panic. No fear of the water. Just fear of what lies beyond.

===

After what feels like a few hours have passed, he makes his way back down towards the beach, through the fog. The waves are gentle against the shore, the sand soft and cool. The sun is low behind the clouds on the horizon. It feels like an entirely different day. The ocean feels entirely different. He still feels the same though, angry and tired. 

Once again, he finds himself carried to a dangerous shore by the sea. Once again, the ocean won’t let him die. But that doesn’t mean it feels much like being kind to him, he’s realized. It’s not his friend. 

“Fuck you!” he shouts, throat raw from swallowing sea water. He falls to his knees, hands clenching in the sand, sea salt still stinging against his skin and sea water burning inside of him.

The ocean doesn’t answer.

**Author's Note:**

> *billy bones voice* "If I had a nickel for every time I was thrown overboard and washed up on an island, well, I’d have two nickels, but its weird that it happened twice, right?"


End file.
